{"id":117,"date":"2008-01-22T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2008-01-22T18:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/artic-front\/"},"modified":"2008-01-22T12:22:33","modified_gmt":"2008-01-22T18:22:33","slug":"artic-front","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/01\/artic-front\/","title":{"rendered":"“ARTIC FRONT”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw this in a headline on the Weather Channel.<\/p>\n

Problem:<\/strong>
\nThe adjective is misspelled.<\/p>\n

Explanation:<\/strong>
\nThe correct spelling of the adjective is “arctic”.<\/p>\n

Wondering about the frequency of the misspelling of “arctic”, I searched Google separately for each of “artic front” and “arctic front” with the quotation marks included in each search. I got about 3,110 matches for the former and about 44,300 matches for the latter. That’s a dominance ratio of more than 14:1 in favor of the correct spelling.<\/p>\n

I then searched Google for each of “artic” and “arctic” (with no quotation marks necessary for the searches). I got approximately 11,300,000 matches for the misspelled adjective(!) and approximately 63,000,000 matches for the correctly spelled adjective. That’s a dominance ratio of less than 5.6:1 in favor of the correct spelling.<\/p>\n

That’s equivalent to saying that more than fifteen percent of all occurrences of this adjective on the Web are misspelled! Shame on the Weather Channel for having at least one staff member in that 15%. The adjective “arctic” is a weather<\/em> term, after all!<\/p>\n

I believe that the misspelling of “arctic” as “artic” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s simpler to say “artic” than to say “arctic” (given that it takes concentration to say the hard “c” sound immediately before the “t” sound), and speech has a spillover effect into spelling.<\/p>\n

Solution:<\/strong>
\n“ARCTIC FRONT”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw this in a headline on the Weather Channel. Problem: The adjective is misspelled. Explanation: The correct spelling of the adjective is “arctic”. Wondering about the frequency of the misspelling of “arctic”, I searched Google separately for each of “artic front” and “arctic front” with the quotation marks included in each search. 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